Mobile Health Technologies for Suicide Prevention: Feature Review and Recommendations for Use in Clinical Care

Opinion statementMobile devices, and the apps (software applications) that operate on them, have potential to help manage and prevent suicidal behavior by assisting with assessment of risk, providing educational and support information, and facilitating access to safety plans, crisis support, and coping tools. This clinician-friendly review provides an overview of the principal features of currently available mobile health apps that are specially designed for suicide prevention. The use of patient contact interventions (i.e., text messaging and e-mail interventions) on mobile devices is also discussed. Recommendations for selecting and integrating these tools into patient care are provided, along with discussion of emerging capabilities and limitations including the lack of research regarding the clinical effectiveness of mobile health apps. The topics presented should be informative to individual practitioners as well as health care organizations that are considering adopting these technologies into their services.

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